Pros and Cons

The Bottom Line

ActiveCampaign is best for small to medium-sized businesses looking for a comprehensive online marketing solution.

Why Go With ActiveCampaign

It’s hard to find an online marketing solution more complete than ActiveCampaign for the price. Only services at premium prices, like Hubspot, offer features better than ActiveCampaign for an SaaS or e-commerce business. The automation system is a primary selling point; it’s miles ahead of any comparable email marketing service and rivals the most in-depth tools out there, with event tracking, purchase automations and smart email content.

Add a deep sales CRM that integrates seamlessly with email marketing and automation efforts, and it’s tough to find something a business wants to do that ActiveCampaign doesn’t support. And if it doesn’t actively support a feature, the API integration can complete the process. Plus, it’s always adding new features and is extremely proactive with updating the platform. ActiveCampaign takes pride in listening to its community, as is evident to those who start using it.

What It Offers

Automation systems

Sales CRM

Email marketing

Site messaging

SMS capabilities

Analytic reporting

API integrations

Training and support

More Reasons to Choose ActiveCampaign

We could talk all day about the automation system, but other features in ActiveCampaign are really impressive as well. For example, ActiveCampaign offers dynamic content. Dynamic content allows users to determine what CTAs, banner images and other content pieces consumers see depending on their previous behavior. This gets very advanced. For example, if a user had someone who purchased a previous course from them, instead of showing an ad or banner image of that course again, it could upsell a complementary product. Or if a reader had viewed five blogs on a particular subject, the user could advertise a related course that is more contextual, instead of a blanket approach.

On the sales CRM side, ActiveCampaign offers lead scoring and internal notification features. So if a prospect goes on a download spree, users can have an automatic email sent to the sales owner with a notification of what pages the prospect is viewing and when. The sales rep can take that information and reach out with much more context, addressing the exact subject the prospect is researching.

Templates

ActiveCampaign starts with 29 templates to choose from, covering e-commerce, events, newsletters, personal emails, seasonal and simple designs that can be customized. Users can build their own or purchase specific ones as well.

The templates are well-designed and easy to customize with a drag-and-drop editor. This program is really intuitive. By combining the power of the editor with a program like Canva to make custom images, businesses will be well on their way to great email marketing.

Pricing

ActiveCampaign’s pricing is simple and offers four tiers: Lite, Plus, Professional and Enterprise. They are offered in a monthly model, and there are no setup fees or cancellation fees. Every tier offers unlimited sending, but users won’t get the sales CRM until they’re at the Plus level. Considering the feature set provided, ActiveCampaign’s pricing is fiercely competitive with large outfits like Hubspot. At 1,000 contacts, it’s $50 a month for the majority of necessary features. It’s not as cheap as other email marketing providers such as Constant Contact or VerticalResponse, but it offers so much more.

Ease of Use

Getting started on ActiveCampaign is quick. Users need merely to enter their name, email and company, and answer a few questions on how they’d like to use ActiveCampaign. It’s free to hop into the tool, add lists, and look around. The dashboard doesn’t feel overwhelming, and it’s really simple to know where to go. ActiveCampaign uses the typical terms, campaigns, automations, lists and so on, so for those who’ve used another email marketing tool before, it should feel pretty natural.

ActiveCampaign’s email marketing and automation features are easy to get started on. The beauty of ActiveCampaign is the depth it offers without being overwhelming. Businesses can get complex with their marketing efforts via the event tracking and dynamic content, but they don’t have to use those features until they’re ready, and these features don’t get in the way of simpler marketing actions.

It’s worth noting the ease of contractual obligations with ActiveCampaign. Many providers of services this robust require contracts and only become affordable by signing a 6–12-month contract. Some platforms even require users to give notice of a substantial contact change three months in advance (e.g. dropping from 6,000 to 4,000 contacts), and if the user is not diligent, they can get charged for contacts they’re not even using. ActiveCampaign avoids all of that mess with a simple monthly system.

Features

ActiveCampaign’s automation system is bar none for the price. It can go as in-depth as a user wants, and the builder portrays the logic steps easily and should feel familiar to Infusionsoft users. The system has event tracking, e-commerce autoresponders, conditional statements, if/then branches, complete segmentation integrated with the CRM, auto imports, smart content, social analysis — the list goes on and on. For a business with a variety of products for a diverse audience, ActiveCampaign is the perfect solution.

ActiveCampaign’s email marketing platform is great too. Users can set up as many lists as they want with unlimited segmentation so they can send out emails to the people most likely to open them. It also offers split testing and reporting for those looking to employ proper data testing.

It’s hard to find something that ActiveCampaign doesn’t do, and that can be a bit much for a small business owner looking for a simple email marketing solution. But for those who plan on growing their businesses, becoming familiar with features they will use eventually won’t hurt.

Customer Support

ActiveCampaign’s support is good. It offers live chat during business hours, and users can always send an email to the support team. Users will see a response within an hour or two most days, and the reps are knowledgeable and helpful. For those who prefer to fast-track learning the program, it offers complimentary one-on-one training which merely requires users to sign up on the site.

ActiveCampaign also has a number of training videos for those who don’t like the hands-on style, and these cover everything from email marketing best practices to automation walkthroughs. The community forum, Facebook group and Slack channel are active as well, allowing users to connect with fellow business owners there.

That’s one of the best aspects of ActiveCampaign — the activeness of its business and community. It’s always listening and responding to feedback, releasing new training videos and updating the tool. If users do find something they don’t like, chances are it will be fixed soon enough.

Review in Short

ActiveCampaign is an all-in-one email marketing, marketing automation and sales CRM tool for businesses of all sizes. It’s easy to use and offers enough depth for any level of marketer. With event tracking, site messaging, split testing, conditional automations, dynamic content and much more, there is not a more complete tool for the price, and its feature set is extremely competitive.

Essentially, ActiveCampaign offers enterprise depth at small business pricing. Features like dynamic content and event tracking are typically reserved for the most expensive CRM/email marketing tools, but ActiveCampaign has managed to provide them at affordable prices.

About ActiveCampaign

Founded in 2003 by Jason Vandeboom, Chicago-based ActiveCampaign was originally a set of eight separate marketing solutions. After realizing it would be much more effective to consolidate, Vandeboom combined all of the products and transitioned the company from a more traditional software company to one complete SaaS solution. After bootstrapping for 13 years, ActiveCampaign raised $20 million in 2016 and has been growing rapidly ever since.

Physical Address

Chicago, IL. No address listed.

Contact Details

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This site is a free online resource that strives to offer helpful content and comparison features to its visitors. Please be advised that the operator of this site accepts advertising compensation from companies that appear on the site, and such compensation impacts the location and order in which the companies (and/or their products) are presented, and in some cases may also impact the rating that is assigned to them. To the extent that ratings appear on this site, such rating is determined by our subjective opinion and based on a methodology that aggregates our analysis of brand market share and reputation, each brand's conversion rates, compensation paid to us and general consumer interest. Company listings on this page DO NOT imply endorsement. Except as expressly set forth in our Terms of Use, all representations and warranties regarding the information presented on this page are disclaimed. The information, including pricing, which appears on this site is subject to change at any time.